Hot 100 WordPress plugins and themes

Ever wonder what WordPress plugins and themes are up-and-coming? Is Yoast still top of the SEO plugin heap? Is WooCommerce still tearing it up? Are more web designers and site owners installing iThemes Security? What about anti-spam plugins? Are Divi and Zerif nipping at the heels of the Twenty-year themes? Well, now you can know.

We are happy to announce the unveiling of the GoDaddy Hot 100 list of WordPress plugins and themes.

We’ll be updating the GoDaddy Hot 100 — a list of the hottest-trending WordPress plugins and themes — each week. The list is ranked by active installs across GoDaddy’s millions of WordPress installations as measured by the greatest net gain in the number of active installs from the previous week.

As committed members of the WordPress community, we thought it would be helpful for everyone to see what customers are really using from the world’s biggest WordPress hosting provider to help everyone recognize the trends in the market. There is a transparency in open source projects (especially in WordPress) that we think is really healthy, and we hope this is useful for small businesses, web developers and the WordPress plugin and theme community at large.

Want to see the list? You can find it here. You’ll be able to see the Top 10 on both the plugin and theme charts. Want to dig deeper into the lists? You can do that, too.

GoDaddy Hot 100 FAQ

Here are answers to a number of frequently asked questions about the GoDaddy Hot 100.

Q: How often is it updated?A: The GoDaddy Hot 100 is updated on a weekly basis.

Q: Are there any paid placements?A: No. It is not possible to pay for placement on the GoDaddy Hot 100.

Q: How are plugins and themes chosen for the list? Does the GoDaddy Hot 100 measure downloads, total installations, active installations or something else?A: The GoDaddy Hot 100 ranks the net change in the number in active installs of WordPress plugins and themes in aggregate across GoDaddy hosting. That is, it looks at plugins and themes that are active at the time of the analysis. It does not include plugins or themes that may be installed but are deactivated.

Q: Does the GoDaddy Hot 100 look at total number of active installs?A: No. The GoDaddy Hot 100 looks at the week-over-week change in active installs. By looking at the net change in active installs (rather than total number of active installs), the GoDaddy Hot 100 highlights what is, well, hot. This helps to highlight up-and-coming plugins and themes, rather than biasing toward older plugins and themes that might have a large legacy install base.

Q: What about download numbers?A: WordPress.org already does an awesome job of tracking plugin download numbers. You can check out those stats for any plugin in the repository on the “stats” page for each plugin. For example, if you wanted to check out the download stats for Akismet, you can view its stats at https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/stats/.

Q: I’m a plugin or theme developer and my information is wrong on my Hot 100 listing. How do I update it?A: Send us an email at hot100@godaddy.com and we’ll get it fixed for you.

Q: How can I let people know my plugin was on the GoDaddy Hot 100?A: You can grab the code snippet for your plugin badge here.

Q: Does GoDaddy allow all plugins to be installed in its environment?A: Some plugins are disallowed on our Managed WordPress environment. You can see a list of these plugins here.

Q: Are certain plugins or themes excluded from the list?A: The GoDaddy Hot 100 looks at plugins and themes that are active across our millions of WordPress installations on our web hosting and Managed WordPress environments. Certain plugins and themes, such as those we develop in-house, as well as other plugins where we might have a business relationship (e.g. WP101, Sidekick and potentially others) are not included in the GoDaddy Hot 100 statistics.

Q: What’s GoDaddy’s stance on non-GPL plugins and themes for WordPress?A: Since the WordPress community embraces GPL, we should reflect that ethos in the Hot 100 list. While some non-GPL themes or plugins may occasionally show up in the list due to the fact that some non-GPL items still exist in the ecosystem, we don’t necessarily need to link to them. We are not linking to non-GPL themes and plugins. (Updated 10/1/15)

Q: I have a question about the GoDaddy Hot 100 — how do I ask it?A: Ask away … we’d love to hear from you! Send us an email at hot100@godaddy.com.

A veteran of both startups and the enterprise, Chris has a deep track record in developing customer community and evangelist programs for brands such as Adobe, H&R Block and Aruba Networks while holding executive positions at Ant’s Eye View and Edelman Digital, and he was co-founder and CEO at Cerado.
He currently lives in the Bay Area with his family.

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